When comparing Vala vs Javascript / GitHub Electron, the Slant community recommends Vala for most people. In the question“What are the best languages to write a desktop Linux application in?”Vala is ranked 3rd while Javascript / GitHub Electron is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose Vala is:

Underneath there is C. It makes some stuff easier to write than it would be with plain C code.

Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking

Pros

Pro

Fast

Underneath there is C. It makes some stuff easier to write than it would be with plain C code.

Pro

Easy Syntax

Vala is syntactically similar to C# and includes several features such as: anonymous functions, signals, properties, generics, assisted memory management, exception handling, type inference, and foreach statements

Pro

Rich GTK Support

Vala developed by Gnome peoples

Pro

Well-integrated with C language

Vala itself is compiled to C. therefore it can use the vast ecosystem of C language, with least effort.

Pro

Good documentation

Pro

Works on Linux, Windows, Mac

Being powered by Javascript, apps build with Electron can be packed to run on all 3 platforms.

Pro

Wide spread support

Javascript is a very easy language to learn, and is handy for all manner of other things. There's a good chance you already know it, or that you will need to know it in the future.

Pro

WebApps without additional work

If you don't require native features and could write a web app (i.e. a website with dynamic elements), then you could just extend it and turn it into a native app. This means that people just need to type your URL to use you app and may get more by downloading and installing it.

Ad

Cons

Con

Not well documented

Con

Low performance

Electron applications use significantly more CPU, RAM, and disk space than applications written in almost any other framework. This results in poor battery life as well as an unpleasant user experience.

Alternative Products

Each month, over 2.8 million people use Slant to find the best products and share their knowledge. Pick the tags you’re passionate about to get a personalized feed and begin contributing your knowledge.